I ran across the following statement while looking on the net for weathering ideas:
"Painting a freight car is an expensive operation.
A good paint job can run in excess of $30,000. Often railroads will spare the expense of painting the roofs of boxcars that will be seldom seen. The steel used does not need to be painted to remain durable. When painting the car sides however, paint overspray can often be seen along the edges."
This is from
http://modeltrains.about.com/od/Detailin...-Roofs.htm
I find it difficult to imagine that painting a rail car is going to be anywhere near 30,000 dollars. I researched a bit and a brand new 100 ton boxcar seems to be around $50,000. I can't imagine that half of that would be in a paint job.
Anyone have thoughts?
Im wondering if the figure is more like $3,000 dollars and somewhere along the line an additional zero was added to make the sum $30,000.
There is no way anyone would spend $30,000 on a paint job for a $50,000 boxcar.
The only way to find out for sure would be send a polite enquiry to a railcar repair facility and ask what the going rate for a boxcar paintjob and re-lettering is.
Mark
3,000 seems a bit to low, and 30,000 seems a bit too high. A decent auto paint job may cost 3000, and cheap auto paint costs about 100 bucks a gallon. At least the street kids are repainting them for free when the paint gets old and tattered
nachoman Wrote:3,000 seems a bit to low, and 30,000 seems a bit too high. A decent auto paint job may cost 3000, and cheap auto paint costs about 100 bucks a gallon. At least the street kids are repainting them for free when the paint gets old and tattered
Automobile paint is probably a lot higher in cost because of the finish and durability required. The cost of applying it is high because of all the sanding, masking and even applying a clear coat. I remember the old days when Earl Shibe stated, "I'll paint any car, any color for $39.95". Time have changed, but Maaco will still paint a car for well under $1,000. Looking at a repainted freight car, you can frequently see other heralds and reporting marks underneath the paint, and yes, overspray is also a way of life. Three grand may be on target. They can repaint a jet liner for 30 grand.
Speaking of taggers, did you hear about the one in Los Angeles that's suing a car company? In their TV advertisement, the car goes by a wall that was tagged, and this guy is suing because he wasn't asked or compensated for them using his "artwork" in their ad.
I wouldn't be surprised at the price of repainting a box car being $30,000.00. I suspect that the paint may be more expensive than automotiv paints other than some of the custom colors used by hot rodders. Typically, I don't think railroads repaint freight cars completely except when they are rebuilt. When an old boxcar is sold to a different railroad, typically the logo and reporting marks are "patched" and the rest of the paint is left as is, like the reefers that Gary is modeling for his "spud plant." If a panel is repalced or a plug door is replaced, only the part being replaced is painted. In fact, at a railroad safety class I took while working for Carrier-Transicold, the maintenance manager for BNSF was teaching the portion of the class on working safely around reefers that are spotted at an industrial site, and one of the guys in the class asked how often freight cars were washed. He said NEVER. "We don't care what they look like as long as they haul the freight and make money." Any car that hauls a commodity that might be contaminated by a spill from a previous load (such as reefers and tank cars) will get a washout or even a steam out when needed, but the outside is only washed by "mother nature" when it runs through a rain storm.
I'm not sure what paint is specified for railroad equipment today. I think it used to be DuPont Imron two part epoxy paint, but I don't know if that is a paint that has been dropped from production for environmental reasons. Remember when comparing an automotive paint job to a railcar paint job, that a car is expected to be kept in a garage (even if most are not), and the paint job is expected to last 5 perhaps 10 years. The car manufacturers design a car to last 10 years/100,000 miles. A boxcar is expected to last 40 years between rebuilds!
How many gallons of paint do you think it takes? I figure the paint may cost as much as 200 bucks per gallon. Standard latex home depot house paint won't cut it here. They need durable, long-lasting paint. Still - 30 grand seems a bit high, 10-15k for a boxcar seems more in-line with what I would expect.
The link that stein provided was a good read. It had a figure for a high end paint job to be $2.13 per foot, I assume the author meant per square foot. Rough math says a 50 foot boxcar has around 2100 square feet of external area (including the roof), times the $2.13 is about $4500.
Although there is no documentation of the figure stated on the 30, 000 cost I can tell you in 1992 we painted an SW 7 with Ditzler Del-Star acrylic enamel and added hardener. The paint, hardener, thinner, and masking tape as well as the thinner to clean the paint gun cost just under $1200. The vinyl lettering was $150, and we had about 200 bucks in sand paper and other material. It was an automotive quality job and the locomotive has been through 3 owners and wears the same paint, though it is fading.
We did not have the time saving equipment that is used in a car shop, and I would never shot blast a locomotive anyway, but with the volunteers there was 4500 hours of free labor.
If a railroad was to do a paint job on an entire box car today, with time and materials I can say 30, 000 is not out of line because you have hazmat materials to dispose of, and older cars were painted with paint containing lead, so any blasting residue is hazmat.
I have a friend that just painted a transfer caboose with a top of the line job and he had $60,000 in the job, so I can believe it.
That seems about right. Not because of the material, but the labor. NKP 765 has had exactly 2 paint jobs in the past 20 years...because the effort required is great. The labor requirements are the single greatest factor in deciding how to paint cars...because you have to organize enough volunteers for enough days. For commercial railroading, the translates into money.
ezdays Wrote:nachoman Wrote:Speaking of taggers, did you hear about the one in Los Angeles that's suing a car company? In their TV advertisement, the car goes by a wall that was tagged, and this guy is suing because he wasn't asked or compensated for them using his "artwork" in their ad.
That's not entirely accurate. Its a full wall mural done by professional artists. Its not a tagged wall. Its a row of buildings with legally painted murals.
radivil Wrote:That's not entirely accurate. Its a full wall mural done by professional artists. Its not a tagged wall. Its a row of buildings with legally painted murals.
The article I saw didn't specify the conditions of how it got there, just that the guy that put it there was a famous tagger. I guess I was wrong assuming that he had tagged yet another wall or building again. But once it's there, doesn't that become public art? I guess I'm old school, but I don't like to see buildings decorated as art, that's just me though.